Pets can help babies resist illness, says study

Baby health can be bolstered by having pets in the house, says a new study.

Researchers in Finland found that out of nearly 400 households with babies, those with pets in the house saw their children suffer fewer ear infections and respiratory ailments in their first year of life.

The research adds evidence to the notion that overly clean environments can actually negatively affect a child's health.

“Children who had dog contacts at home were healthier and had less frequent ear infections and needed fewer courses of antibiotics than children who had no dog contacts,” said the study author Eija Bergroth, according to HealthDay.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the study asked parents with infants of nine weeks old to keep a diary of their child's health during their first year of life.

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Those babies that lived with cats or dogs were about 30 percent less likely to have respiratory infections and 50 percent less likely to get ear infections.

"Our results suggest that dog contacts protect children from respiratory tract infections during the first year of life," wrote the researchers, according to HealthDay.

The study also found that cats were less beneficial than dogs to a baby's immune health.

They also found that that babies were more healthy when living in households in which the dog spent a significant amount of time outdoors, possibly due to the baby becoming immune to the dirt the animal brings in, said CBS News.

The study was published in the journal Pediatrics.